View source for A statement of purpose

A reader on a social media site asked ''"Are you looking to make money from this of just help the Element Community"''. A good and valid question. And in the Element community I do see some people who are jumping on the bandwagon of monetizing their hobby. And that's absolutely fine. But it'd be nice if all the folks doing that were up front about it. I answered that individual in the thread but thought I'd like to capture some of that answer here on the Wiki for all to see. 

Why am I doing this? 

* I've lived a life of service. My day job is a non-profit. I've volunteered with several organizations in my adult life. It's part of what makes me, me.I see this Wiki as a service to not just Element owners, but to the history of the Honda Element. 
* There are many Element communities out there. Almost all of the information about the Element is out there already. Somewhere. But is it on a forum? A web page? A fan page? Social media? Why not provide a central place for factual information?
* Presenting information in a wiki also allows for presenting information without the traditional toxic car club online community. There's incredible toxicity in SOME of the car communities. The Element community has largely bucked that trend, but I've seen it on occasion. Put things in a wiki and there's still room to talk about it, but that gets put on a different page. 
* I want to sell ads enough so that I can pay the bills. Hosting, domains, etc. Any other ads that I might do or sell will HAVE to be tasteful and safe. I won't be just farming out to a third party that places any kind of random ads. Additional revenue will allow me to explore other Element related projects. I have one idea in particular that would be amazing, but would require an additional outlay up front and then rental space for some measure of time. I might want to farm out the video editing for that project, so that'd be another expense. 
* I ain't quittin' my day job. I'm not looking to monetize any of my Element life so far that it would take me out of my day job. 
* If you see merch showing up, it's to help pay the bills and to amplify the message that this resource exists! Merch may come sooner than later. And you can bet I'll be wearing some really nice hoodies. Hoodies are awesome. So are stickers. And morale patches. And yeti coffee mugs. 


Primary expenses thus far:

* MyWikis.com - $30/mo = $360/year
* Domain registrations. 4x$24, 1x$40 = $136/year
* Supporting domains/virtual hosts - DNS, etc, $14.50/mo + $5.85/mo = $20.35/mo = $244.20/year
** Estimate total costs per year - $740.20.



This page could change over time. I don't want to ever take this site TOO seriously, but I do want it to be reliable and factual.